Memorial Day Weekend - 2008

We (Rama and I) had a wonderful time with Siva's family and Lata's family during Memorial Day weekend in Connecticut. Also, we spent a few hours with my brother Ramayya (and his family), who visited Lata's briefly. Managed to meet Lalli (and her husband Anil) of No. 25 Sea Sands after about 25 years, and she hasn't aged a minute! Here are a few photos, videos, and their links (in approximate order of our visits).

Uncle and aunty (Siva's parents). Bad picture quality due to operator (i.e., me) error. I should have taken one more photo. Uncle loves cooking and is an excellent cook. We enjoyed eating his food as much as he enjoyed cooking it, to say the least.

My New Orleans buddy Siva, Neeta (his wife), Kali (their friendly Belgian Shepherd family member), and Mallika (their very cute daughter) have a beautiful trail in their neighborhood. We enjoyed a nice long walk on this trail and these photos were shot there.

Neeta and Siva took us around Harvard and MIT campuses. The top photo was at Harvard, and the bottom one was at MIT (view from Memorial Drive). It was good to be on elite campuses with elite folks (Siva did his post doc at Harvard, and Lata is a faculty member in Yale School of Medicine!)

On Friday Siva arranged for a nice tour of Boston that included the Big Dig, Bunker Hill, Boston Tea Party, Boston Harbor, and downtown. Neeta's choice/treat of Pizza at Regina was awesome - the best pizza I ever had.

On Saturday, we had a wonderful time with Lata, Sharma garu, Gautam (son), and Sanghamitra (daughter) at their place in picturesque Oxford, CT.

Lata treated us with a delicious lunch at a (photo above) Thai restaurant on Yale Campus, and took us to Yale University Art Gallery and Peabody Museum of Natural History. I went to the art gallery expecting to see some local amature works. While sauntering past the exhibits, I was shocked (in a good sense) to see works of Monet, Renoir, and Andy Warhol on the walls! Though I am not an art aficionado by any means, it was uplifting to see works of masters from a touching distance. The other exhibits that attracted me were a beautiful bowl made in China around 230 B.C.E. and Rodin's Thinker.

Exhibits that attracted me at Peabody Meseum were skeletons of dinosaurs, Rafflesia, and live Venus Fly Traps and a few other carnivorous plants (with so many plant-eating animals around, our earth needs some animal-eating plants too!). I was really impressed by Sangu's all-round knowledge - she was an excellent guide (a walking encyclopedia) to all of us.

We were able to meet Lalli and Anil only for a few minutes on the way back to the airport (photo below). Thanks to Siva's driving skills and calm nature, we managed to reach the airport 15 minutes before the departure, and made it into the plane as the last passengers just before they closed the doors (many apologies to Siva for placing him in the tough position).

I posted photos of this trip on Picasa and short video clips on You Tube. Unfortunately, didn't get to shoot photo of Anil, and didn't get a good shot of Sharma garu (again, operator error!). Finally, I saved the best thing for the last (see Mallika's video below) - it took me a while to realize that she can't understand Telugu language:-)